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F.F. Bruce, “The Gospel of Thomas: Presidential Address 14 May 1960,” F.F. Bruce, “The Gospel of Thomas,” Faith and Thought 92.1 (1961): 3-23. The Gospel of Thomas F.F. Bruce Presidential Address, 14 May 1960 [p.3] INTRODUCTION In 1945, or perhaps a year or two earlier, some peasants in Upper Egypt accidentally dug into an early Christian tomb. In it they found a large jar containing thirteen leather-bound papyrus codices. These codices proved to contain forty-eight or forty-nine separate works, mostly Coptic translations from Greek.1 One of the codices was acquired by the Jung Institute in Zurich, whence it is now known as the Jung Codex.2 Its chief importance lies in the fact that it contains a Coptic version of the Gospel of Truth, a speculative meditation on the Christian message emanating from the Valentinian school of Gnosticism, and quite possibly composed by Valentinus himself (c. A.D. 150).3 The remaining codices are housed in the Coptic Museum in Cairo, and it is one of these codices that contains the Gospel of Thomas.4 The discovery was made in the vicinity of the ancient town of Chenoboskion (‘goose- pasture’), on the east bank of the Nile, about thirty miles north of Luxor. Here one of the earliest Christian monasteries was founded by Pachomius (c. A.D. 320). The documents are frequently referred to as the Nag Hammadi papyri, presumably because it was in Nag Hammadi, west of the river, that the discovery was first reported. Nag Hammadi is the nearest modern town to the scene of the discovery. The documents belong to the fourth century A.D. or thereby, but the Greek originals were composed a century or two earlier. Some of [p.4] them are known to have existed in the tune of Irenaeus (c. A.D. 180), and some go back to the first half of the second century. Practically all of them are Gnostic treatises, and bear eloquent witness to the Gnostic influence in early Egyptian Christianity. Gnosticism took a bewildering variety of forms, but basically it teaches salvation through knowledge (gnosis). Its underlying philosophy is a dualism which regards matter as inherently evil, the product of a demiurge or master-workman who is an inferior being to the Supreme God. The Supreme God, being pure spirit, naturally cannot allow Himself to contract defilement by coming into contact with matter in any way. (Hence Gnosticism cannot accept in their fullness the biblical doctrines of creation, incarnation or resurrection.) One Gnostic 1 See W. C. van Unnik, Newly Discovered Gnostic Writings (London, 1960); J. Doresse, The Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics (London, 1960). 2 See F. L. Cross (ed.), The Jung Codex (London, 1955). 3 First edited by M. Malinine, H. C. Puech and G. Quispel, Evangelium Veritatis (Zürich, 1956); cf. K. Grobel, The Gospel of Truth (London, 1960). 4 First edited by A. Guillaumont, H. C. Puech, G. Quispel and Y. Abd al-Masih, The Gospel according to Thomas (Leiden and London, 1959). An excellent account is given by R. M. Grant and D. N. Freedman in The Secret Sayings of Jesus, with an English translation by W. R. Schoedel (London, 1960). Cf. also J. Doresse, l’Évangile selon Thomas (Paris, 1959). F.F. Bruce, “The Gospel of Thomas,” Faith and Thought 92.1 (1961): 3-23. Sect, the Naassenes,5 held the serpent (Hebrew nahash) in honour because he defied the ban which the demiurge had placed on the impartation of knowledge (this reinterpretation of the fall narrative of Genesis reminds us that the demiurge was commonly identified with the God of the Old Testament, as distinct from the God whom Jesus revealed). In this life men are souls imprisoned in material bodies; it is by true knowledge that they can be liberated from this imprisonment and from the entanglements of the material universe, and thus ascend to the upper world of light where the spiritual nature has its home. Jesus appears in Gnosticism as the redeemer who came to communicate this saving knowledge and effect this liberation; He communicated the knowledge to selected disciples in the interval between His resurrection and ascension, that they in turn night impart it to a spiritual élite. Hitherto much of our knowledge about Gnosticism has been derived from orthodox writers like Irenaeus and Hippolytus who refuted the Gnostic systems in detail; now, when the recently discovered documents are published in full and available for study, we shall have a most valuable arsenal of source-material from the Gnostic side. SAYINGS OF JESUS The document with which we are concerned at present, the Gospel of Thomas, does not bear a Gnostic appearance on its face. Only when we examine it more closely do we see how well adapted it is to the literary company which it keeps. [p.5] This document is a compilation of about 114 sayings ascribed to Jesus. It is described in the colophon as The Gospel according to Thomas. The significance of this title is amplified in the opening words of the document: These are the secret words which Jesus the Living One spoke and Didymus Judas Thomasl wrote down. And he said: ‘Whosoever finds the interpretation of these sayings shall never taste death.6 Jesus said: ‘Let not him who seeks desist until he finds. When he finds he will be troubled; when he is troubled he will marvel, and he will reign over the universe.’7 It is not the sayings themselves that are secret, but their interpretation; and that was evidently an interpretation in line with the principles of a particular Gnostic school. This emerges more clearly from a curious variant of the Caesarea Philippi incident which is related in the Gospel of Thomas (Saying 13): Jesus said to his disciples: ‘Compare me and tell me who I am like.’ Simon Peter said to him: ‘You are like a holy angel.’ Matthew said to him: ‘You are like a wise man and a philosopher.’ Thomas said to him: ‘Master, my face is quite unable to grasp who you are like, that I may express it. ‘Jesus said: ‘I am not your Master, for you have drunk; you are intoxicated with the bubbling spring which belongs to me and which I have spread 5 Cf. Hippolytus, Refutation of all Heresies, v. 1-6. They were also called Ophites, from the Greek word for ‘serpent’ (ophis). 6 Didymus (Greek) and Thomas (Aramaic) both mean ‘twin’. The name Judas Thomas suggests a Syrian origin; in the Old Syriac Gospels Judas not Iscariot ‘ of John xiv. 22 is identified with Thomas. 7 A Johannine expression (cf. John viii. 51 f.), recurring elsewhere in the Gospel of Thomas. F.F. Bruce, “The Gospel of Thomas,” Faith and Thought 92.1 (1961): 3-23. abroad.’ Then he took him and drew him aside, and spoke three words to him. When Thomas came back to his companions, they asked him: ‘What did Jesus say to you?’ Thomas answered: ‘if I tell you one of the words which he spoke to me, you will take stones and throw them at me, and a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up!8 One of the Gnostic sects, the Naassenes, believed stones to be animate beings, and held that the existence of the world depended on three secret words―Canlacau, Saulasau, Zeesar.9 These words certainly [p.6] convey an impression of mystery, until one realises that they are simply corruptions of the Hebrew phrases in Isaiah xxviii. 10, 13, translated ‘line upon line’, ‘precept upon precept’, and ‘here a little’! And it is probably more than a mere coincidence that Hippolytus refers to a Gospel of Thomas which he says was used by the Naassenes.10 About half of the sayings preserved in this document are identical with, or quite similar to, sayings recorded in our canonical Gospels. Some of the others were already known from quotations in early Christian writers, or from the fragmentary sayings of Jesus found on some papyrus scraps from Oxyrhynchus. About the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth considerable excitement was caused by the announcement that papyri had been found at Oxyrhynchus containing sayings of Jesus most of which were previously unknown. From an unfortunate association of these sayings with the Dominical Logia mentioned by Papias they came to be widely known as the Oxyrhynchus Logia. Seven of these sayings were found in Oxyrhynchus Papyrus i, discovered in 1897; six years later six further sayings were found in Papyrus 654 and two or three in Papyrus 655.11 It is now established that these fragments belong to the Greek original of the compilation which has now come to light in a Coptic translation as the Gospel of Thomas. The Coptic version indeed seems to represent a somewhat different recension from that represented by the Oxyrhynchus papyri, but there can be little doubt about the essential identity of the two. It is plain from our canonical Gospels that Jesus was accustomed to say memorable things in a memorable way, and it is in any case unlikely that none of His sayings was remembered apart from those which the four Evangelists have recorded. In fact one saying is explicitly attributed to Him in Acts xx. 35 which has no precise canonical parallel: ‘ It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ There may be other echoes of His words in the New Testament which we cannot detect so certainly because they lack an express ascription to Him. Christian writers in the post-apostolic generations preserve other sayings which they ascribe to Him.
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